The US had been an imperialist power in the Pacific and on Japan beginning in the 1850’s with the expedition of Commodore Matthew Perry. It brutally conquered the Philippines, in Japan's backyard, at the turn of the century and had military bases there ever since. The US wouldn’t let Japan get their oil from anyplace in their neighborhood, it had to be purchased from the US, and they wanted this to change. Bombing Pearl Harbor was a fooling way of going about it, but it was only a military target, and never made them a threat to the US, contrary to the war propaganda, that to this day is still believed by a great many.

If the Pearl Harbor bombing justified the US decimating Japan, as the US did, then half or more of the world is justified in violently responding to the US in any way or manner they choose, because the US, and its century plus year old every expanding global empire has aggressed on them, in one way or another, which is far more than Japan did to the US.

And it’s no accident that China was taken over by communists a few years after the US conquered and occupied Japan.

Questions,

In regards to your Commodore Perry comment, ,
If Spain tomorrow suddenly lost their minds and committed an act of war against the United States, because we decided we want nothing to do with helping them avoid bankruptcy, and they decided they wanted Puerto Rico back, would this be an appropriate application of "blowback?" (See the Spanish American War)

So the US, Britain, and the Dutch East Indies agreed to embargo oil and steel shipments to Japan in August of 1941, then Japan was justified in attacking Pearl Harbor in December.

I will suggest to you that sort of thinking is why anarchists can't get any traction. The Japanese navy started the planning for the attack on Pearl Harbor in the Spring of 1941. You guys need to read some more Rothbard to see what he says about that, so you will know what you are supposed to think.

The NAP is at play here because the government cut off access to oil, not the private companies themselves. I'm not saying that Japan was justified in launching an attack on Pearl Harbor but as was the case with 9/11, blowback was not surprising.

The NAP is at play here because the government cut off access to oil, not the private companies themselves. I'm not saying that Japan was justified in launching an attack on Pearl Harbor but as was the case with 9/11, blowback was not surprising.

The question is: Why did the U.S. put an oil embargo on the Empire of Japan?

The US had actually been trying to pressure Japan into abandoning its invasion of China for some time by embargoing certain strategic products like scrap iron. Pretty much everything else had already been embargoed when Japan threatened to occupy French Indochina to cut off American supplies being sent to the Chinese. The US warned Japan what would happen if they occupied Indochina, and they went ahead an occupied it anyway. In my opinion if anything, Japan provoked the United States. But the embargo did put Japan into a bind. Without the American oil they would be forced to shut down military operations in China. Their only recourse was to secure their own source of oil, and the only one available to them was in the Dutch East Indies. The line of communication to transport the oil was right past the US bases in the Philippines. To secure their lines of communication the Japanese decided they had to take out the Philippines, which meant going to war with the United States of America. This was a decision the Japanese made, and the US DID NOT PROVOKE Japan into attacking. This is an accusation used by America bashers today to try and demonize everything about America.

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'China is having a new war, and we are having trouble getting into it. We always have gunboats there, so if there is any shooting, why, one of our boats will be shot at and that gives us the usual alibi.

'But this time it seems we only had one gunboat and it had to maneuver around for days before it could get in the line of fire.'--Will Rogers

Last edited by acptulsa; 10-30-2012 at 10:16 PM.

Originally Posted by The Rebel Poet

You talk of mountains and molehills; I find that ironic. To you, being called names for using unapproved speech is a "mountain," but Edward Snowden, the NSA, the War of Terror, higher taxes, racial profiling, government run healthcare and free housing are "molehills". That sort of confused misprioritazation is exactly what's wrong with Trump supporters.

Originally Posted by acptulsa

When your position is indefensible, a good offense becomes something more than 'the best defense'. It's the only defense.

In regards to your Commodore Perry comment, ,
If Spain tomorrow suddenly lost their minds and committed an act of war against the United States, because we decided we want nothing to do with helping them avoid bankruptcy, and they decided they wanted Puerto Rico back, would this be an appropriate application of "blowback?" (See the Spanish American War)

What should the United State's response be?

Was it an "act of war" on a military target far from the US? In any case, decimating Spain in response would not be an act of defense. And if the US hadn't been letting them trade with those they wished, as it hadn't let Japan since the Commodore Perry expedition, they would have a legitimate beef.

Was it an "act of war" on a military target far from the US? In any case, decimating Spain in response would not be an act of defense. And if the US hadn't been letting them trade with those they wished, as it hadn't let Japan since the Commodore Perry expedition, they would have a legitimate beef.

What happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was terrible, but it hardly qualifies as "decimating the entire country"

And I certainly could be wrong, but every time I've heard the story of Commodore Perry, it said that he used force, to force the Japanese to trade with the outside world, not just the US

Except as to the rule of apportionment, the United States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America.

Also, I didn't previously point out the Lend-Lease program was passed in March of 1941, 9 months before the Pearl Harbor attack. Because of it, China, who Japan was at war with, became a recipient of supplies of US materiel.

And I certainly could be wrong, but every time I've heard the story of Commodore Perry, it said that he used force, to force the Japanese to trade with the outside world, not just the US

Here's a text of "The Treaty of Amity and Commerce Between the United States and the Empire of Japan, 1858" aka the "Harris Treaty". It's all about the privileges "Americans" will have.

i agree that Lucky Lindy was often quotable,
but i had to do caps to remind lew rockwell
folks of something that quite successfully is
part of 1931's current events + why ww2 is
also something that slowly eventually happens.

...Having broken the Japanese diplomatic code, the Americans knew, among many other things, what Foreign Minister Teijiro Toyoda had communicated to Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura on July 31: “Commercial and economic relations between Japan and third countries, led by England and the United States, are gradually becoming so horribly strained that we cannot endure it much longer. Consequently, our Empire, to save its very life, must take measures to secure the raw materials of the South Seas.”[3]

Because American cryptographers had also broken the Japanese naval code, the leaders in Washington knew as well that Japan’s “measures” would include an attack on Pearl Harbor.[4] Yet they withheld this critical information from the commanders in Hawaii, who might have headed off the attack or prepared themselves to defend against it. That Roosevelt and his chieftains did not ring the tocsin makes perfect sense: after all, the impending attack constituted precisely what they had been seeking for a long time. As Stimson confided to his diary after a meeting of the war cabinet on November 25, “The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.”[5] After the attack, Stimson confessed that “my first feeling was of relief ... that a crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people.[6]